USA

mgates@panix.com
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Painting a Room

My brush corrects
the grime of years;
soft strokes of white
whisper of mercy.

Winter blurs the street with snow,
spring, a haze of leaves.
And this room will change
under my patient hand.

Here it all begins again:
four walls, blank as sheets of paper,
soon to be engrossed
by fingerprints, photographs, life.

Dream

Night. My boat crosses a dark water,
steered by a shadow.
Miles it seems to the lake's blurred bank-
fated, vaporous destination.

Clouds fray,
releasing cold rays and spangles.
The moon again, with its pale excuses.
Not yet, not yet, it means to say:

slow down.
There will be an end to rowing.
For now, study the fishes, their blank flanks
freezing a moment in silver.

Eyes are staring beneath this mirror.
Should I countenance such murky distractions?
An oar creaks
and lifts a beard of weeds.

Aftermath

Did it happen?
Did they ever exist?
Two surreal pillars

holding up the sky,
on a clear day marking the curvature of the earth.
And I

mildly drunk on their Promethean splendor,
refused to believe in explosions,
what I witnessed, heard

though the pixilated scrim
and electronic babbling--
the shrieks. Breaking news!

"Have you seen this woman?"
"Have you seen this man?"
The bent Calder sculpture

thirty-five percent retrieved,
the smoking, Venetian façade
pointing back toward Dresden,

a finger, a hand,
an arm, a head
dreaming I'm here, sifting

through ashes,
searching for anything lost--
a coffee cup, a shoe, my safety.

© All Copyright, Michael Gates.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.